New city bikes finally given green light

The City Council will finance 855 of the bicycles, while Frederiksberg Council and DSB will take care of the rest

June 19th, 2014 3:31 pm| by admin

After eight long years, the City Council has finally approved the 40 million kroner needed to get the remaining 1,860 GoBike electronic city-share bicycles on the road by the summer of next year.

The City Council will finance 855 of the bicycles, while Frederiksberg Council and DSB will shell out for the remaining 1,005 bikes, all of which are fitted with Android tablets.

“The city and commuter bicycle is a Copenhagen invention that has already been sold on abroad after representatives from foreign cities saw how it worked here in Copenhagen,” Morten Kabell, the deputy mayor for technical and environmental issues, told Ingeniøren newspaper.

“The city bicycle project can help improve the green image that Copenhagen has battled to attain.”

All over town The city approved the funds for the remaining city bikes after it evaluated the performance of the initial 250 GoBike prototypes – a survey that showed that 70 percent of users were very satisfied. Just 13 percent were dissatisfied with the bicycle’s performance.

The nearly 2,000 bicycles will be dispersed to about 100 bicycle stations, which in the future will be found at train and Metro stations, special attractions, congested areas and areas with a high density of workplaces.